Opening the live campaign with a series of in store appearances, Suede play two live sets in London (at Rough Trade East and HMV). I barely make Rough Trade a minute before they take the stage : I was trying to get to, and then back, from a wedding hundreds of miles away. I’m in a foul mood, and I cannot get anywhere near the front – so I don’t try. Standing at the back as the band play a fifty minute set made exclusively of newer songs is a refreshing and rewarding experience. The confidence in there – and the material – makes clear the band don’t need the old songs to play a great show. Sure, the old songs are great. But the new songs are great too. And I love that over the two shows, almost every song is made from the recent years ; the millstone of history is a weight they carry with grace, not a rock that drags them down.

Starting with a double punch of “As One” and “Wastelands”, either of these songs would be hailed as godlike classics if only it was 1994. Make no mistake about it, this version of the band, with Richard Oakes and Neil Codling in, is as much Suede as they ever were and more so, and these choices have become integral and essential to the band ; Codling and Oakes interplay with an affection and playfulness – especially on the live debut of “Flytipping”, that demolishes confidently any doubts anyone should ever have had. In particular, the absence of any songs written by the first lineup, isn’t to me, noticeable at all. Suede are a self-realised, fully complete artistic identity that have outpaced the shadow of history and escaped the legacy by being who they are, not who they were. I don’t feel the lack of those older songs at all. This is who Suede are.

At this point, Suede are as close to perfect as I think they will ever get. They’ve been doing this so long now that they’ve clearly mastered their craft, and at that enviable point where skills and experience at their apex whilst also the band are physically young and hungry enough to be atheletes. In short, few bands get to this point – 30 years in – with the same lineup they had 23 years ago, and still make vital, and fresh records. Suede have long left behind any conception of who you think they might be, and now are growing with grace and skill. In some ways this stuff they do now is like Talk Talk’s “Spirit Of Eden”, a world removed from their previous pop life. They don’t try to have hits, because nobody has hits these days. They try to write the best songs they can, and compete on their own terms.

The pop level is still there, because the band can’t help but write songs – and good ones. The grand epic reach and drama, the curled tension of the later years shows a band that has, in the past five years, been reborn. Suede have pulled off, as I hoped they would, the best reformation I’ve ever seen. The records are just as good as they used to be, if not better. The abilities they had then have become refined, and strengthened with time. “The Blue Hour” is made of solid, powerful songs that sit very well with each other, and on their own. Suede can do epic at the drop of a hat. “Outskirts”, for example, has the pull-and-release stomp of glam rock wrapped around the kind of drama you would expect in a move soundtrack.

There’s a token nod at HMV to two songs from “Coming Up” : know your audience, and the live debut of “Flytipping” (that is, to my minds, a huge meditation of sound and words that is a latter-day brother to “Asphalt World”), sees the band communicating by glances to make sure they don’t lose their place in this multi-faceted and complex song, with a seamless and showy transition to “Film Star” and “Trash”. Both sets close with “The Invisibles” and “Life Is Golden”. The latter is one of the best songs Suede have ever done, and closes the set with a confident optimism that asserts the song’s rightful place, and position, as they grow old with a dignity and strength of vision that so many of their once-peers abandoned many years ago. Suede are determinedly not a touring history museum for nostalgic middle-aged people clinging to the last gasp of their twenties, but clearly showing how it is not only possible, but preferable, to remain valid, relevant, and determinedly alive as you travel in time through life. This isn’t the sound of surrender to time, but, as so few bands do, not going gently into the night but living and being alive.

Rough Trade East :
As One,
Wastelands,
Cold Hands,
Outsiders,
It Starts And Ends With You,
I Don’t Know How To Reach You,
For The Strangers,
Tides,
Sabotage,
Invisibles,
Life Is Golden

HMV :
As One,
Wastelands,
Outsiders,
It Starts And Ends With You,
Roadkill,
Flytipping,
Film Star,
Trash,
Invisibles,
Life Is Golden.